Highland amputee forced to live in hospital for 3 months due to devastating shortage of carers

A WOMAN from Strathspey is desperate to go home after enduring 3 months in hospital due to a total lack of carers in her area.

Debbie is fully recovered and wants to go home and get on with her life

A PATIENT who had her leg amputated has been trapped in hospital for three months because of a carers shortage.

Debbie Michie is fully recovered from surgery and desperate to go home to her husband.

But she cannot be discharged because a recruitment crisis means there are not enough carers to provide the four daily home visits she needs.

Debbie, 61, said: “I’d just like to go home to my own house with my husband and get on with living my life again.

“I have no idea when that will be, so I’m stuck here and my life is on hold.”

Debbie had her right leg amputated at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness last September.

A few weeks later, she was transferred to the Ian Charles Hospital in Grantown-on-Spey.

By April, she had recovered and was ready to be discharged. But a home after-care package has been impossible to arrange.

Debbie, from Nethy Bridge, said: “I’m one of five people in here given a delayed departure because there are not enough carers to help when you go home.

“We are taking up five beds in a ward of 13 and other people needing to be transferred down here can’t be because there isn’t enough room.

“I’ve been told it’s not a funding problem, it’s a lack of carers.

“They need to look at why people are not wanting to be carers. It must be the hours or wages.

“The staff here have been brilliant and have kept me sane.”

Debbie’s problems began when she developed a blood blister after a routine hip operation.

She endured years of pain and the blister turned into an ulcer, which meant amputation was the best option.

Her painter and decorator husband Iain, 63, said: “It’s a dreadful situation. To have suffered like she has for so long and then to come through the operation and be faced with this is just heartbreaking.”

Jean-Pierre Sieczkarek, the NHS’s area manager for Badenoch and Strathspey, apologised for patients being stuck in hospital.

He said: “This is not about money or poor planning but a lack of people who want to do care at home work.

“NHS Highland has been taking steps to try to improve the situation including advertising more posts, working with the independent sector and our own staff doing overtime.But we have not been able to create enough capacity.

“We need to think differently by looking at new roles, pay, career structures and so on.”